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J Bytheway
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England
Jul 2001
time: 05:34
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There are a couple of things that always bugged me about movement in most TBS games based on a square grid.
Firstly, that it takes as few movement points to move "the long way" diagonally across the corner as it does to move across an edge. It should take about 1.4 times as many. MoM implemented this (with a cost of 1.5) and I liked it there. It means that there is more likely to be a single optimal path to any objective, rather than several different ones, which always struck me as silly. When there are several options it is often optimal to take a path different from that which the game suggests, which is a nuisance. I noticed this during the democracy game - it made it more difficult to decide where we should send our units.
Secondly, It's annoying that movement costs are based soley on the properties of the square being moved into - which means that moving in one direction can be much more expensive than moving along the same path in reverse. It seems to me that it would be better to average the costs of the squares on which th move begins and ends, so for example moving from grassland to mountains or mountains to grassland would cost 2, rather than 3 and 1 respectively (IIRC). I'm not sure what gameplay impact this would have - the only thing that springs to mind is that it becomes less beneficial to sit fortified on a mountain.
Since CTP2 stores movement in hundredths of movment points, there should be no trouble with rounding, etc., with implementing these things.
Thoughts?
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Maquiladora
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How do 1 movement units work moving diagonally at a cost of 1.5?
Not sure how point 2 would be without testing it, but then i dont have a problem with the current way, its more intuitive the way it is now.
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Gilgamensch
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France
Jun 2002
time: 06:34
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Movement:  agreed. And not only MoM. Battle Isle, using a hex, rather than square, movement regarding of direction cost 1 MP (depending on terrain). As it uses 6 sides, not really the same situation  .
To further add:
quote:
How do 1 movement units work moving diagonally at a cost of 1.5?
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I would say it works the same way, as: How does a 1 MP unit move into woods/mountains ?  And this could be taken into account with adjusting/changing the overall MP costs and values (maybe)
For the rest:
quote:
movement for each tile is decreased when within your or an allies boarders (as your military knows the areas well)
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Agreed as well. As a home player you shall have advantage. Although in modern times, this is to a certain extend nullified. But in 'ancient' times (and I would say till the ~19th century) this was true. Enemy armies always had to rely on spies and similar. There were also exceptions, like the move of Hannibal over the Alps. But otherwise the attacker was so often surprised by unexpected moves, due to better knowledge, of the locals
.(to name only a few areas: America/Africa)
Support:
We have the abstract system and we shall leave it like this. And the factor about more cost in foreign territory: It is already implemented with the status of the Army: Peace/War (can't remember how the middle position is called). Maybe people just completely forgotten about this slider
Range of units:
Let me think: You ever heard of the silk-street? You ever heard of the Salt-street? You ever heard of the Silver-fleet? You ever heard of Alexander the great (just to remind, he went till India)? You ever heard of the Roman conquests? You ever heard about the Mongols? Just a few questions
.. So this sounds a bit  not real
Movement (2) (hills&grassland):
I think this would be needed to be playtested. But I am not sure about the added value. And again, I already see us complaining about the funny way the algorithm is gonna send us
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Maquiladora
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[quote] I would say it works the same way, as: How does a 1 MP unit move into woods/mountains ? [/qupte]
*smacks forehead* that makes sense.
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E
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July 24,2005 Ctp2 Tiles in sig!
May 1999
time: 21:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Gilgamensch
For the slider, we shall make it more important to show a bit more realistic the difference between war and peace. That shall do the job. I mean, I NEVER ever changed it to piece. If we would make it relevant, than you would have the abstracted logistics. Make it like food& PW & Gold and resource dependend.
Food: you march on your stomach
PW: for military roads used for support-purpose (invisible, but could be replaced by normal roads, just the distance from road till army needed)
Gold: Paying locals for support
Resource: For the rest, maintanence/usage/repairs.
By the way, there is a game which handles logistics (can't remember the bloody name anymore), there you had to handle 'everything' for your army, from arrows/bows/shoes/whatever/..... Whenever you missed something the unit behind wasn't able to fight or defend or run........It was fun for a few minutes, but me thinks, jts a big nightmare. It might be fun for a few units, but doing it for the whole empire.........thanks no......... |
Logistics IS A BIG HEADACHE. I know from experience. But the reason I asked it be modelled better as a balance to the bigger is better and militaristic nations as the only way to win the game. Have logistics as a restraint on always conquering always expanding will allow other options like a trade empire etc.
I proposed the RANGE concept because it will be similar to the use of aircraft and the carriers that I believe is going to be worked on for the AI.
But I do favor the abstracting by adding unit cost (food, gold, PW) but have it increase depending on range. So if a legion has a range of five, then when you are 15 spaces away (thats very far in ctp2 terms) its cost is 4 times the normal logistic food/Gold/PW cost (increase exponentially 1,2,4,8,...). It keeps increasing the farther you are away so its very expensive to travel so far. This will also increase the use of colonies. (Of course the AI will have to calculate the costs of movement etc)
As for the historical comparison. Alexander etc had to conquer cities in order to maintain his forward logistic bases. And if you read Van Crevalds book on logistics you'll see that the various methods of logistics (forage/magazines/depot/rolling magazines etc) were costsly etc. But most significantly those living off the land could only stay for a few months before they consumed all the resources of the land. (Of course only the US and UK today can carry on a sustained conflict far away but at high price and do due to control of sea and skies)
If we do have a logistic system it would be nice to have certain advances allievate some of the burden too.
Probably the best way would be the cost system.
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Flinx
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Toronto, ON CANADA
Nov 2001
time: 00:34
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quote:
Originally posted by J Bytheway
There are a couple of things that always bugged me about movement in most TBS games based on a square grid.
Firstly, that it takes as few movement points to move "the long way" diagonally across the corner as it does to move across an edge. It should take about 1.4 times as many. MoM implemented this (with a cost of 1.5) and I liked it there. It means that there is more likely to be a single optimal path to any objective, rather than several different ones, which always struck me as silly. When there are several options it is often optimal to take a path different from that which the game suggests, which is a nuisance. I noticed this during the democracy game - it made it more difficult to decide where we should send our units. |
 Not a priority for me, but if this is implemented just make sure it is 1.41 and not 1.50
quote:
Secondly, It's annoying that movement costs are based soley on the properties of the square being moved into - which means that moving in one direction can be much more expensive than moving along the same path in reverse. It seems to me that it would be better to average the costs of the squares on which th move begins and ends, so for example moving from grassland to mountains or mountains to grassland would cost 2, rather than 3 and 1 respectively (IIRC). I'm not sure what gameplay impact this would have - the only thing that springs to mind is that it becomes less beneficial to sit fortified on a mountain.
Since CTP2 stores movement in hundredths of movment points, there should be no trouble with rounding, etc., with implementing these things.
Thoughts? |
Now this one I disagree with. Over the length of a journey, there is no difference in total movement costs so what is the benefit of increasing the complexity of the implementation? It seems logical to me that you can charge down out of the mountains onto plains faster than you can climb up into the mountain from the plains. Instead of thinking of movement as moving from the centre of one tile to the centre of the next, think of it as leaving the very edge of the tile you are on, and traveling across the entire tile you enter.
Now the issue I have with movement is that unused movement points are lost between turns and that a unit can always move at least one square per turn (given no ZOC restrictions). Example: a unit with three movement points takes 3 turns to cross three tiles with a two movement point penalty each, so does a unit with two movement points and so does a movement with one movement point. I suggest that the unit with three movement points should take only 2 turns, the unit with two movement points 3 turns, and the unit with one movement point 6 turns.
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Maquiladora
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quote:
Now the issue I have with movement is that unused movement points are lost between turns and that a unit can always move at least one square per turn (given no ZOC restrictions). Example: a unit with three movement points takes 3 turns to cross three tiles with a two movement point penalty each, so does a unit with two movement points and so does a movement with one movement point. |
How would that work with the 3 movement unit skipped a turn on the 2 movement land, would it keep those points forever until it moved? or lose them if it didnt use them in consecutive turns?
quote:
I suggest that the unit with three movement points should take only 2 turns, the unit with two movement points 3 turns, and the unit with one movement point 6 turns. |
I really dont like the idea of any unit taking more than one turn to move one square.
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Flinx
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Toronto, ON CANADA
Nov 2001
time: 00:34
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quote:
Originally posted by child of Thor
@ the thought of the diferent results for 'keeping' back unused movement points, i rarely use the go-to command, but both ways should work out the same - not using the go-to command seems more tactical(in that you can respond each turn to events), so is it fair to penalise the player for this method?
And i think in some(all?) of the Mods the ability of Mounted units to enter mountains was blocked unless a road had been built, which seems a decent resolution. |
I was thinking of any movement command either by keyboard or mouse.
Give a unit with a positive movement score a movement command; It moves one tile and the movement penalty of that tile is subtracted from the unit's movement score; If the unit still has a >0 movement score, it is available to move again that turn; If the unit has a 0 or negative movement score it cannot be moved that turn; each unit 'remembers' it's movement score and at the beginning of the next turn the movement points of the unit are added to that score up to a maximum positive score equal to the movement points of that unit; if the unit has a positive movement score, it can move that turn, if the movement score is still negative, it cannot move.
Examples:
-A warrior has 1 movement point.
-The warrior ends a turn with a movement score of 1 i.e. it did not move that turn.
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it again has a movement score of 1 {min(1+1,1)=1}
-You select the warrior and press 9 and the warrior moves diagonally up and to the right onto a mountain tile which has a movement penalty of 3 which is subtracted from its movement score making it -2 (=1-3)
-The warrior has a negative movement score and can move no further this turn; you move other units etc. and then press the turn button (or enter)
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it now has a movement score of -1 {min(-2+1,1)=-1}
-The warrior has a negative movement score and can move no further this turn; you move other units etc. and then press the turn button (or enter)
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it now has a movement score of 0 {min(-1+1,1)=0}
-The warrior has a zero movement score and can move no further this turn; you move other units etc. and then press the turn button (or enter)
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it now has a movement score of 1 {min(0+1,1)=1}
-The warrior has a positive movement score and you press 6 to move the warrior to the right onto a grassland tile which has a movement penalty of 1 which is subtracted from its movement score making it 0 (=1-1)
-A knight has 4 movement points (iirc); let us also assume that movement in + directions costs 1.41 times movement in x directions
-The knight ends a turn with a movement score of 0
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it now has a movement score of 4 {min(0+4,4)=4}
-You select the knight and send it on a multi-turn journey to a goody hut revealed by a map trade with the neighbouring Canadians
-The route is left over four grassland tiles, diagonally down and to the left over three hill tiles and finally down over two plains tiles
-The knight moves left (4-1.41=2.59-1.41=1.18-1.41=-0.23) over three grassland tiles and can move no further this turn; you move other units etc. and then press the turn button (or enter)
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it now has a movement score of 3.77 {min(-0.23+4,4)=3.77}
-The knight moves left (3.77-1.41=2.36) over a grassland tile and then diagonally down and to the left (2.36-2=0.36-2=-1.64) over two hill tiles and can move no further this turn; you move other units etc. and then press the turn button (or enter)
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it now has a movement score of 2.36 {min(-1.64+4,4)=2.36}
-Several Canadian units have shown up, and their ZOC prevent the knight from moving; you move other units etc. and then press the turn button (or enter)
-At the beginning of the new turn its movement points are added to its movement score up to a maximum score equal to its points i.e. it now has a movement score of 4 {min(2.36+4,4)=4}
-You again send the knight to the goody hut and it moves diagonally down and to the left (4-2=2) over a hill tile and then down (2-1.41=.95-1.41=-.82) over two plains tiles to the goody hut only to find that you are beset by barbarians
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E
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July 24,2005 Ctp2 Tiles in sig!
May 1999
time: 21:34
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perhaps left over movement points can be:
added to the strength bar (healing)
OR a slight reduction in logistic (food/gold/PW) cost for that turn
OR add to morale (if implemented) if attacked on the next turn....
I prefer the logistic impact in relation to movement points because it goes the "Empire" view. That way your treasury can calculate how much military you can move a turn as opposed to uits being able to move all the time.
This would mean logistics would be abstracted in two ways:
1) basic upkeep maintenance (food/gold/PW)
2) movement cost (not just move points but possibly PW/food/Gold as well to abstractly represent the supply wagons that are supporting the movement)
So as an example if you try to move a cav unit over a hill with a 1.4 movement cost, that factor is mltiplied to the maintenance cost (or a present unit move cost) that subtracts fod/gold/pw for the movement. Since the Cav can only move two spaces per turn that represents my range concept. On top of that the farther you move on exterior lines of communication the greater the cost of NOT maintenance (like I previously recommended) but of movement so it would a multiplication of:
terrain move cost * tile distance * unit move points * PW/GOld/food cost for movement (or maintenance if people want to make that the standard since supply varies with unit)
My math may be off, but I think the concept can be handled fairly well by the AI since its basically movement. But it make require the "AI" to plan a stack of death attack or prioritize if its resources go to War or Peace. That may have to go into Goals text.
Overall I think it could be a positive implementation to represent logistics abstractly and curtail "excessive" militaristic growth.
Last edited by E on 25-03-2004 at 23:01
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Gilgamensch
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France
Jun 2002
time: 06:34
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quote:
Originally posted by E
perhaps left over movement points can be:
1. added to the strength bar (healing)
2.OR a slight reduction in logistic (food/gold/PW) cost for that turn
3.OR add to morale (if implemented) if attacked on the next turn....
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Actually why not all?
If 1 is full, add to 3 and then decrease 2. Which would be 'logical'.
Adding strength, would just mean getting support and re-inforcement. Due to this the overall moral would increase as well, as the troop can recover. And when those 'tasks' are finished, the logistics can decrease as they don't need the full support anymore.
BUT:
It would be needed to be limited to a certain extend, if outside of a town/fort or similar. My suggestion would be a max. of 30% of the current value, which would mean that a fortified can only recover 30% of it's current health (same for moral and support).
quote:
This would mean logistics would be abstracted in two ways:
1) basic upkeep maintenance (food/gold/PW)
2) movement cost (not just move points but possibly PW/food/Gold as well to abstractly represent the supply wagons that are supporting the movement)
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Me thinks sounds good
[/quote]
So as an example if you try to move a cav unit over a hill with a 1.4 movement cost, that factor is mltiplied to the maintenance cost (or a present unit move cost) that subtracts fod/gold/pw for the movement. Since the Cav can only move two spaces per turn that represents my range concept. On top of that the farther you move on exterior lines of communication the greater the cost of NOT maintenance (like I previously recommended) but of movement so it would a multiplication of:
terrain move cost * tile distance * unit move points * PW/GOld/food cost for movement (or maintenance if people want to make that the standard since supply varies with unit)
[/quote]
Actually for the maintance cost, me thinks, the calculation shall be as of there was road (normal), but with a slower movement-rate, like 2.5 instead of 3.
BUT: It shall be calculated from the closest existing normal 'road'-system including RR and mag-tube. The only problem I see for this would be the AI implementing it on long distance.
BUT: What about cross-water invasions? As you can't build till REALLY late anything across water
EDIT:
Maybe we shall create for this a new TI? Like support harbour? You would have to build one on your home-place and one across. You could even build it on the same continent. If for example a huge mountain range would be between you and the AI (or visa versa), you could assume that supply would go rather by ship.
Cost for the TI, shall include PW/gold/food. Not sure, if we could program, that this would expire (meaning to calculate every turn how much would be left). Like 1000PW/500gold/1000food: The army would be using 200/100/200 every turn, so after 5 turns you would have to build a new one. (or rather just subtract it directly [again] from the empire)
/EDIT
Reason why I am suggesting like this: If you have build forts/road-system (including RR and MT), you shall have to pay less for the support, which would be logical, as the support could travel quicker as on 'dust'-roads. But anything beyond this point shall be treated as normal road (invisible).
quote:
Overall I think it could be a positive implementation to represent logistics abstractly and curtail "excessive" militaristic growth. |
Yep, let's hit those  warmongers
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24-03-2004 01:18
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